The huge flag billows above me, the red, the white, the black slowly come down. I stare. Wondering. Imagining. What would happen if it were to be shredded into a thousand little confetti like pieces? Would they fall with a thud? Or splatter with a squish?

Feet treading, treading feet.

It is December. Every day after work, we meet or don’t, to confirm the plan for the evening; a protest, a meeting, giving a workshop about electoral laws, engaging with people on the streets about economic rights, screening Kazeboon[1]. Some days, we have dirty water hurled at us, words flying in anger. Some days, we are chased. Most days, we are not.

It’s a weekday. Early evening. Since Friday, the incident of the girl with the blue bra had gone viral. Heavy clouds gather above. Gusts of wind make their way from the sea. It is not raining. Yet. We gather in front of the bibliotheca Alexandrina. The Facebook announcement had said that this would be a woman’s only protest; parallel to one taking place in Cairo roughly at the same time.

The route is towards downtown this time on the corniche. Placards with images of a stenciled blue bra abound. Today there are many familiar faces from different places. Over the months, different people had joined and left “the revolution”. Our feet start to shuffle. The chants start. About the military, about the girl in the blue bra. We start off in the two digit numbers, little by little we increase in numbers and momentum. Men start to appear. Men we know as friends, not foes. They are on the outer circles. I thought it was supposed to be a women’s only protest, that means something today. I am told they are here to “protect us”; to make sure that no harm comes to us. I shrug my shoulders. Isn’t that the point we are trying to make? We Should Not Need Protection. We Should Not Need Protection.

We are several hundred. Not a big protest by usual standards. Today is different. Different ages. Powerful. Angry. Sad. Resilient. Persistent. Joyful in our collectivity. Our feet stomp. The ground rumbles. The wind cannot drown our voices. [2] We push onward. Cars drive by us, some slowing down to read, to listen. Giving us a thumbs up. Others shake their fists or look away in contempt. We are all that is wrong with the world.

I stop. I open my mouth, nothing comes out. I open it again trying to explain to those surrounding me why those chants don’t…the voices drown mine and I end up looking like a fish gasping for air. I continue walking along, stomping. Silently.

[1] Kazeboon was a collective campaign that was started to show the violations and excesses of the Egyptian army. The campaign consisted of distributing fliers, stickers, and doing screenings in streets of compiled videos that documented all the army’s human right’s violations, transgressions and exposed its lies.

[2] It is hard to put this in words, the energy is difficult to describe but it is different from any other protest I had been in over all the previous months, years. I have to admit it was my favourite. It felt like we weren’t just protesting that incident but all the macro and micro-aggressions that we feel and are subjected to as females on a daily basis.

We softly hummed as we walked towards Villa Belle Epoque[1], breaking out into a spontaneous skip every now and then. We had started the day in no rush, hurrying nothing and no one, reveling in the quiet.

The night before, after the long day, after the ebbs of disappointment that had been effaced all of a sudden by the rush of excitement and relief, after losing friends then finding them, then losing them again, after the incessant ring of the cell-phone, after loud music being blown out of speakers and cars, after the continuous syncopated car honks bursting in unison, after walking and seeing the endless waves of traffic and bodies heading towards downtown and out of it, I had felt too tired to make it to al-Māʿdī to spend the night at friends, despite H and R’s appeals. Instead, I walked to Zamālik-which was quicker than taking transportation and I enjoyed watching people’s reactions and overhearing their conversations about what had happened- and stayed at the Mayfair[2]. With its elitist reputation and dense ex-pat presence, the mood in Zamālik was very different; there was hardly any visible registering of the news of Mubarak’s stepping down. It’s as if one had stepped into a parallel universe where none of the day’s happenings had occurred. People’s faces were almost morose. Brooding. Tense. I shrugged it off, “of course, people in this area have vested interests in preserving the status quo, that is why they aren’t celebrating” was my interior monologue. Perhaps, an unfair and naïve judgment. In the months to come, we would all realize that those who had vested interests in Mubarak’s regime were so many, far beyond our imagination and did not have to be well to do or living in upper end areas. In the months to come, we would realize that we had nothing to celebrate that night, nothing at all. The celebration was part of the problem.

In the morning, after a quick breakfast I made my way to H & R’s[3] place in Māʿdī. R said that she was going to invite us both- her younger sister H and I- for brunch at the Belle Epoque. We decided to walk, enjoying the sight of the green trees that drooped over the balconies of the two or three story buildings, the bushes that cocooned the gates and entrances. The scene was idyllic, as well as surreal, especially as we walked into the hotel. Such a far hue and cry from the eighteen days with its boundless din, energy and stress. I realized walking in how out of place I looked, for during the eighteen days I had paid so little attention to what I was wearing. I had stoically worn only jeans and alternated between two pullovers with a shirt underneath and a sweater or cardigan when it was cold. Black boots were my footwear and which I would continue to wear for the next five months – even when all the walking had worn them down-as if not wanting to let go. The pullovers I put to rest after that. Forever. In my mind, I felt it silly to pay attention and think about what I was going to wear during that time. I had also thought that that would help me blend in. To look more Egyptian. Jeans and a simple pullover, no different from many others. Gone were my colourful dresses and bright headscarves, my hipster silver rings, my favourite tops and dress trousers, my blazers.

We were led in and seated by the pool. After ordering and while eating, several times one of us started a sentence and then it just trailed off. But we enjoyed the silences. We needed them. Different birds twittered and sang and we tried to identify them. We were the only people there. We didn’t know what to say, how to express what we were feeling, or what would be relevant. Then little by little, we started to talk about what was possible, about what we hoped for, for the country, about what we wanted to do, what were the priorities. A lifetime of dreams and wishes all bottled up, came gushing out. R said that she was going to leave corporate work as she was tired of it and how meaningless it felt. She would give up her fat salary and work for a NGO instead or work freelance. She wanted to do something meaningful. H said that she would work towards her goal of opening a cultural space, one that would focus on bringing events and workshops to neglected cities like Damietta, Port Said and not Alexandria or Cairo that already had several cultural spaces. And I. Well, I said that going into politics was never the aim for me, it was just something that I felt I had to do, and that now I would focus my attention in any free time I had on an educational project or education reform on a volunteer basis. I thought then and still think now that education was the bud and the root. Now nearly six years later, R has quit her corporate job and is working freelance. H has her cultural space in Cairo that focuses on doing wonderful cultural workshops and events in Damietta, Mansoura and Portsaid. And I. I left.

[1] Villa Belle époque is a boutique hotel in Māʿdī and which is described as “A colonial-style country house in a peaceful neighbourhood with great staff a cool pool and a gorgeous garden.”

[2] Mayfair hotel is a two floor establishment in Zamālik, that is more like a high end hostel.

[3] R and H were friends and had participated for a few days in the demonstrations in Alex after I had phoned them and on one day we had actually rented trucks to gather and collect garbage off the streets when the garbage’s stench was starting to become a huge problem. The government had stopped collecting garbage in Alexandria. Some say it was a form of punishing people for revolting. They had returned to their jobs in Cairo at the end of January or beginning of February.

Quickly making my way to campus to sign some paperwork related to student internships. The Manshiyyah protest had come together after all and had made its way to the head of Port Said St. in front of the Bibliotheca. I join. It was now 5:00 pm. Still warm and light, no Alexandrian rain that day. Even when it did rain in the coming days, it was always a gentle drizzle, one that we found comforting, an excuse to be quiet for a while. The chants had already changed “The people want to bring down the regime”

Which people? There were so many peoples. Peoples who would change, align and realign. A constant state of flux. Peoples who two and a half years later, cheered or stood silent as the military came to power, as over a thousand people were killed in a few hours, seeing them as the other. As another people.

If I had written this then, I would have written about the…

(To be read out loud like a performance)

Rumble of the ground beneath our feet. Echoes of our collective being, our voices that bounced off each other, off the walls, amplified, intensified, floating, only to return unto us in intoxicating mouthfuls, savouring their flavor. Unbridled sense of joy at the realization that we were not dead. We were not dead. Leapfrogging through hurdles, years of mistrust. You can smile randomly at that man down the row. He will not harass you. Not today. That elusive moment that we are now forever doomed to chase, to try to recapture. Like the centaur, the unicorn, the phoenix.

But I cannot write that now. How can I?

News had reached us that the protest that I had left earlier, had regrouped, made its way finally through the barricades and was now heading towards us. Both protests joined would be U n s t o p p a b l e. Stopped they had to be.

One of my non-Egyptian students suddenly was walking next to me, camera in hand, taking shots, smiling. Hugging, I urge her to go. Go. Go. A few minutes earlier, we realized. What was happening. A row of high ranking police men, most of them in their official uniforms, shiny stars and eagles on their shoulders were behind us. Walking. Trudging. Grudgingly. Police cars and trucks behind them, slowly edging their way. In front of us, at the end of Port Said St, in front of the Jesuit Cultural Centre, row upon row of the lowest ranking security personnel were standing [1]. Black harsh uniforms. No shiny stars and eagles on their shoulders. Used to standing for hours in the scorching sun. Used to following orders. Used to beating people up. A Pincer. They made sure we saw. To scare us. We could still leave if we wanted, via the side streets. Don’t remember seeing anybody who did.

Scattering left and right. Running into allies. Standing in doorways. I am standing in a doorway in a side street. Turns out it’s a dead end street. Two girls standing next to me. One crying, shivering. Only eighteen. Shshhhh. Look her straight in the eyes, and make half a dozen promises that I don’t know that I can keep. But I make them anyway. We all hold hands quietly. Looking across the other side, another small group, in another doorway. We wait. And wait. They wait. Not going to go away. Want to teach us a lesson. We could wait here all night, wouldn’t make a difference. We look at each other, across, nod our heads, decide we will come out. All together. Line us up against a wall. Raise their batons. Arms and hands raised and crossed to cover head and face. One knee raised across to protect whatever can be protected. Instinct. We brace ourselves. Sobbing is heard. Sounds of feet running, running, shouting. Abracadabra. Men standing in front of us, telling us to crouch. They take the blows. Shouting “You don’t get to beat the girls”[3]. Don’t know who they are, never got to know their names, don’t remember their faces. It was dark. For whatever reason, and in whatever name they did that for, we are grateful. Grateful.

The shiny stars and eagles come now. Make us walk single file. Tell us to get lost, go home. Jeer at us “Hope you are happy with yourselves now, we’ll see if you will ever protest again.”[4] Can’t help giving him a look. Never gave it before. Have never given it since. A look that resounded with years of reading about beatings, forced disappearances, deaths, sodomization of people in the stations, corruption, and abuse of power that they had carried out. A hushed whisper behind me “Look ahead, please for my sake don’t look at them”.

Ring the bell, walk through the door, tell them “I am famished”. Ask casually if anything was mentioned in the media about Alexandria. Not really. General mention in al Jazeera of protests. No footage. No mention of guns and teargas. Sigh of relief. Will spare them the details.

[1] عساكر الأمن المركزي

[2] On a personal level, more than any other form of violence at that point, I was most afraid of that. Not that I glorified at all being a victim of any other form of violence like being beaten or shot, but for some strange inexplicable reason I felt that being trampled on entailed a certain loss of dignity, a certain denigration of one’s humanity.

For a month we had been reading what had been unfolding in Tunisia. For a couple of weeks, we had been following and talking about the preparations and instructions within the group pages. For days we had been posting on our own pages, and phoning friends trying to convince, elicit support, what we would later learn to call to “mobilize” or just to rev up our own courage amongst a general attitude of sarcasm, disbelief and hostility towards the call for nationwide protests on the day. A disbelief that even we secretly harboured. There were years of previous experiences of low turnouts, fear that had become inscribed on our bodies and a tide of seemingly unending rehearsals for a moment that never came. A disbelief that we had learned to hide when people scoffed at us day in day out, saying “you don’t have a chance”. They were right, we were wrong. We never had a chance. Not a real one anyway.

Instructions were read about writing signs of why we have chosen to protest. Instructions about how to use proxies, how to always carry coke cans to wash your eyes with to neutralize the effect of tear gas- which proved ineffectual when the time came, your eyes stung so hard you could not open them, groping around- what to wear so as not to stand out, not too baggy as to be easily grabbed by, but comfortable enough to be ready to run. And run. Instructions to always have a text ready to send immediately before your cell phone is confiscated, to one of the human rights’ lawyers on the list. Your name, your address, your ID number, a family member’s phone number. And “I have been arrested”. End text. A text that could be the difference between a chance disappearing forever and being found. Alive.

(A single black screen appears like those used during silent movies with white writing in small font)

There were a few starting points. The first was what used to be called Mohammed Ali’s square, later called La Place des Consuls, and which to our parents’ generation and ours was simply known as Midaan al-Manshiyyah. At 12 “o” clock. Reaching there on time, the Midaan was relatively empty. Usually crowded, overcrowded, bodies jostled left and right, bumped into unapologetically, side stepping every couple of minutes to avoid this or that. Now, hardly anybody there. As Egyptians we were usually never on time. Why on earth did I think that it would be any different when it came to starting a demonstration or revolution? Not that we knew it would be one then, or whatever it has been named and renamed ever since. Lower ranking security personnel in plain clothes permeate the place. Easily identifiable. Where and when did we learn that skill? Not at school for sure. Others loiter. Are they just onlookers, passersby, potential protestors? I wait, walk around the Midaan, look down the side streets for signs.

Impatience. Jumping into a taxi, I decide to go to another starting point at the other end of town. A hotel called Wardit al-‘Asaffrah. A hotel that belongs to the military forces. A piece of information that I did not know back then, like so many other things. It is now 1 ‘o’clock. Made a phone call to a number, one of many I had on my contact list. All equally anonymous to each other at that point. In response to my question, “there is a demonstration starting twenty five metres up ahead, go down the side street”.

Lesson Three: Always start in narrow side streets if possible. Police cars cannot reach them. Enough momentum can be gained. Easier for people to join, feel safe before heading onto the main streets.

Sure enough. There were three people there. I joined them. Starting to walk and chant. Chants that evoked possibilities. That evoked the wish for caring others. That wanted to shake people out of their apathy, our zombie like existence. Numbers increase. We look up, look up, look up imploringly, smiling at those in the balconies. Quickly propped up red brick apartment buildings with no paint, so close to each. Almost suffocating. Eclipsing the sky. We look down, burst open or clogged pipes leak raw sewage mixed with mud. We plod on. We are now in the tens. A woman walks next to me asking me what my signs mean. I start to read them out to her “I am against the institutionalization of corruption, and …….”[1] and then stop, realizing that the handwriting is not the problem.

Lesson Four: Use simple language that speaks to the people surrounding you. Remember why you are there, what you are passionate about.

Putting the signs down, rolling them up, I stop to talk to her. We talk about what she wants for her children. The things that need changing. Her daily challenges. Her husband’s hard work, his health. We walk on. We are now in the hundreds. A man comes up to me telling me I should walk at the back. Looking back at him, I tell him I will do no such thing. He apologizes, telling me that he was just thinking of my safety and that it is totally up to me. Finally seeing familiar faces, an older couple who are friends. We walk on. It is 3 ‘o’clock. Barricades meet the protest, trying to stop it from reaching the corniche. Attempt after attempt is made via different routes, each time we are met with cars, barricades and blockades. No violence. Yet. The protest breaks up.

Cairo had its Tahrir, a centre to which people gravitated. Stubborn Alexandria defied that. We tried, we did, choosing different centres to gravitate towards and stay put in. MaHtit Masr, Sidi Gaber… but it eluded us every time; was it because of the nature of the coastal city that both beckoned and mocked circumscription? So we gave up and chose to walk, to map the city with our feet and voices. To rediscover it and in the process rediscover our selves. Experiencing sensations that we never knew existed, realizing that whatever we felt or did exceeded the sum of our individual bodies and selves. We walked for hours on end every day, a new route, a new area, a new street, changing our slogans, adapting to each place, resting our voices and walking in silence at times, feeling an expanded sense of safety in our togetherness, despite the raw fragility of our existence. A sense of safety that managed to quell our fears and gently efface the effects of decades of shared aloneness, a mass aloneness that we had become so accustomed to in spite of or maybe because of our overly populated streets . And we made sure that people heard us and saw that we were not the Lebanese Hizbullah-Iranian infiltrators-Israeli Zionists-Qaeda affiliates that they said we were, we were Egyptians just like them. Or were we?

Search

Search for:

Text Widget

This is a text widget, which allows you to add text or HTML to your sidebar. You can use them to display text, links, images, HTML, or a combination of these. Edit them in the Widget section of the Customizer.